I was talking about administrators and the rest of the bureaucracy. The political side is different, with a different set of factors in play.

That being said, yes, US Congressmen are much more intelligent than state and municipal legislators as a whole. Congresspeople aren't dumb (in the sense of g factor). When you hear a Congressperson say "stupid" things, he's usually being disingenuous, or is falling pray to the common human tendency to ignore facts in favor of ideology.

Todd Akin, for example, has an engineering degree from a reasonably well-known school and served in the Army Corps of Engineers. He's not stupid, he just believes crazy things. I've met lots of engineers that believe crazy things. Indeed, I've met more engineers that believe crazy things than non-engineers. I think it takes above average IQ, as a general rule, to believe something that goes against conventional thinking. But believing crazy things makes for great political appeal.

There are lots and lots of smart people in local government, and plenty of dumb ones due to the lower bar to getting elected in a weak year.

What makes you think Congress is substantially different? Plenty of safe congressional districts out there, and from what I saw, the primary talent required for higher office was a willingness to dial for dollars for hours on end. If someone says things like the earth is 7,000 years old (significant number of congressmen), why should I assume that guy is smart and being disengenuous rather than taking him at his word?

My wife used to be a lobbyist, so she has experience with both federal officials and state officials.

Yes, there are safe districts, but the competition for the average federal district is just higher than the competition for the average state district. Not e.g. Cook County or LA County versus some random federal district in Montana, but some random federal district in Montana versus some random state district in Montana.

As for people saying the earth is 7,000 years old... there are a lot of smart people who believe that. Even rational people do not apply rationality to all aspects of their life, nor is every person well-versed in one subject well-versed in all subjects. Heck, Bill Frist had some wacko ideas about the ways you could get AIDs, but he had an AB from Princeton and MD from Harvard Medical School. He was a faculty member at Vanderbilt Medical and chief resident in cardiothoraic surgery at Mass. General. He is an objectively smart guy and he thought you could transmit AIDs from tears and sweat.

That's very interesting about a doctor making that comment about tears and sweat so I looked it up. Here's the infamous conversation:

> Stephanopoulos: You’re a doctor. Do you think tears and sweat can transmit HIV”

> Frist: I don’t know…I can tell you..

> Stephanopoulos: You don’t know?

> Frist: I can tell you things like, like..condoms..

> Stephanopoulos: … You believe that tears and sweat might be able to transmit aids?

This is different than the impression from claims that he was saying it could happen. He said he didn't know about those in particular.

Does the HIV virus ever leach out in tears and sweat? Probably, but not in quantities great enough to be of concern. Is there a minute remote chance one could get it from this under some perfect storm of chance? Probably not, but it's conceivable.

It's like the saliva issue. HIV is present in the saliva at extremely small levels thought to be no risk. Six people caught it from dentist David J. Acer, something that was thought, and claimed, to be impossible.

As a doctor Frist likely was familiar with cases such as that of Dr. Acer. His statement, the actual statement he made which is "I don't know", is not unreasonable.